


Alex's Story

by Elfriend



Series: Wayward Sisters In Their Own Words [1]
Category: Supernatural, Wayward Sisters (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 11:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13500672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfriend/pseuds/Elfriend
Summary: Alex Jones, Healer: I was a kid when Vampires kidnapped me, and for them I lured people to their death. All I want is freedom from the supernatural, to learn to help people, do some good, maybe find redemption, but my chosen family hunts. If I can help them kick it in the ass, then…I will.





	Alex's Story

She said not to watch - and I didn’t

I turned my back on her...limping, bleeding...hurting, because of me.

I turned my back on Mama, skin streaked black with the poison I’d given her, kneeling helpless, waiting to die.

I didn’t watch, but I remember every single thing I saw before I took the coward’s way out, and turned my back on my guilt.

I remember everything when I close my eyes, or dream, sharper than human eyes can see. Sharp as a new minted vampire. Every sound louder than human ears can hear, my skin feeling every shift of air, scents so sharp and strong they’re confusing, unidentifiable - except for the blood.

I may have been cured afterwards, I may be human, now, but I can’t forget the bright intense flash of Mama’s fiery orange hair in Jody’s grip, Jody’s pounding heartbeat like a tympani, and my revulsion at being tempted by the rhythmic, cacophonous, rush of her pulse.

I didn’t watch, but I remember Mama’s shock of betrayal, a look so pained, I knew she loved me. It wasn’t healthy, it wasn’t right, but in her twisted way, she did care. She took me, and used me, a maestro of manipulation. I depended on her, and my “brothers.” We called it family, we called it love, but I always knew it was all wrong. The stink of all the carnage is lodged in my formerly vampire-enhanced nose, and it will be, forever.

I didn’t watch, but I remember Jody’s eyes tight with her pain, and with sympathy for me. Sympathy! She shouldn’t have even been there! It was my fault, but far from angry, she was heart-hurt for me. She even found some empathy for Mama, before she did what she had to do - what I should have done.

My skin felt the air move as it split around the blade, and my ears recall it passing so swiftly to it’s mark, and through it, yet I heard it all distinctly, like infinite separate events, the shearing of skin, muscle, sinew, and bone, then the sickening thud of Mama’s head hitting the floor.

Things just happened after that. Dean and Sam showed Jody how to cure a freshly turned vampire, and it made me miserably sick, but it was the least I deserved. No amount of feverish discomfort could burn away the crushing guilt I felt for betraying my family, letting Mama down for the very last time, and disappointing Jody for the first.

The harsh clarity of those moments, and the accompanying guilt, are clearer than normal memory, but the endless parade of men I betrayed to their deaths? I can’t recall a single face - except Richard Beesome, of course. It’s easier to remember a man who you sentence to death, once he returns the favor.

In life, he was different from the others. He was kind. But hunting had been slow for awhile, and soon they were going to ask to feed on me, and that was a request with only one answer. Even a hint of “no” in my eyes, and the manipulation would begin.

Don’t we take care of you, Alex? Don’t we feed you when you’re hungry? Clothe you? Protect you? Keep a roof over your head?

It hurt, badly, and it was terrifying, their feeding. The threat of Mama’s displeasure was the flimsiest of barriers between my brothers feeding, and my brothers killing. When Mama fed on me, she stroked my hair as if she were doing me a kindness, showing her affection, cradling me as if I were really her daughter, all while her teeth tore through the layers of scarred flesh of my throat. The awful, awful sucking sound she made as my life became her food drowned out my soft, stifled whimpers as it drained away.

It was always after that when I most wanted to run, but it took a full day before I wasn’t too weak and dizzy to walk upright, and longer before I wasn’t too nauseated to eat. By the time I was well enough to try, I’d already become emotionally anaesthetized again.

And that is why, when Beesome chased off my mark, and tried to protect me, I didn’t warn him. I gave him to my nest. It was either give him up, or forfeit my desperately won apathy. I couldn’t maintain that when they fed on me, not with the terror, disgust, and pain of being food.

The parade of faces, all those men, blunted by my numbness, were just one long nightmare. That is how real I allowed them to be to me. Just bad, monstrous, murderous, dreams - not choices that were made by me. Me and nobody else.

I don’t think I will ever measure out the proportions of my shame. How much was survival? How much was fear? How much love? And how much was pride of mastery? Mama taught manipulation well, after all.

How much was my somnambulance? I pretended so hard not to care. Sometimes...sometimes...I actually didn’t.

Turns out that pretending not to care is a useful skill in high school, too. At least, it is if you want to be miserable and alone. I didn’t deserve what some of the other kids had, the sparkling laughter, banal flirtations, and pointless dramas of ignorant bliss. The supernatural world was fiction to them. They didn’t need to know they had a murderer wandering the shadowed corners of the school - or what else those shadows might hold.

Jody said all the smart things, and I knew she was right. I accepted what she was offering, but never completely, since I didn’t feel entirely deserving. It was easier to fall back on my blunted feelings. Push back against her mothering.

I have few memories before Mama took me. I lived with my grandmother, and I guess it was pretty normal. I think she loved me, and I think I loved her, but for awhile after Jody, Sam, and Dean killed my nest, and Jody took me in, I had a hard time identifying what real love actually is.

You know what solved that particular problem? Other than Jody always managing to find one last nerve, I mean? Claire. When Jody opened her home to yet another wayward teenager, this one the orphan of an angel vessel, (because, yeah, those exist, too), I had something outside myself to look at. I saw Jody offer love to Claire, and I saw Claire push it away, fail to believe in it - not trust that she deserved it.

We are very different, Claire and I, but not as different as we pretend to be. Claire was angry, I was sullen. Claire was volatile, I was moody. Jody loved us both, and neither of us believed it, but I could believe Jody loved Claire. That I could believe, and as annoying as she could be, I had no doubt Claire deserved that love. Gradually I had the revelation that if she did, then, just maybe, so did I.

I started to take an interest in things, just a little. School, sports, other humans...and I started thinking about my future, one I could create for myself far away from the supernatural world.

Then along came Mr.Phelps. School wasn’t something I had much experience with, so I had no basis for comparison when it came to determining whether to consider myself intelligent or not, but suddenly I was getting into some of my classes. Mr. Phelps took an interest, encouraged me.

So I was loved, I was smart, I had hope for the future, and that is when Beesome turned Henry into a vampire.

Beesome thought he built me up, that he created my happiness, by giving me a popular boyfriend. I admit it was nice being pursued by someone who could choose anybody. He was a good actor, too. I fell for him because he seemed sweet and sincere. But if Henry’s deception had been what gave me hope for the future, it wouldn’t have been real hope anyway. A boy doesn’t give a girl hope, a life, a girl gives herself hope and a life, and if she shares it with a boy, well, then, lucky boy.

I’m not saying it wasn’t a painful betrayal, but vampires are vile, evil, creatures. Nothing a vampire does surprises me, I have learned to be numb to those kinds of horrors, remember? The only thing Beesome could have successfully done to tear me down was to kill Jody - and Claire.

Fortunately, Claire’s hunter’s instincts, that I never took seriously enough, were very real. Because of her, we had Sam & Dean Winchester for backup, and we all saved each other.

Love isn’t easy, not to give, and not to receive. It’s a risk to give people the power to hurt you. I guess I never really loved Henry, not really, because I walked away from his headless corpse with only a twinge of regret, but I do love Jody - and Claire, too. They are my family, and Sam and Dean are a part of that. Calling it what it is didn’t make it easier, but it made me better, and stronger.

I made a commitment, despite everything, to become a nurse, a healer. Maybe I can balance the scales a bit, help people. I made a commitment to be a better daughter, and a better sister, and sometimes I even succeed. When it comes to the supernatural, I made one more commitment, to divorce my life from the hunters’ lives of the people who I love most.

Two out of three ain’t bad.

Enter Donna, and Patience, and Kaia...and it turns out that my expanding family is not going to escape the supernatural anytime soon. Nobody expects me be a part of it, but, you know, if there’s going to be monsters, they’ll need killing, and I can help. Just like nursing, that saves people. This is my family, and that’s the family business.

I guess, when if comes down to it, we’ve got to bury them somewhere. Might as well be the backyard. Pass me a damned shovel.


End file.
